1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to vehicular paint applicators, and more particularly to an intermittent or continuous vehicular paint applicator for corrugated surfaces.
2. Description of the Related Art Including Information Disclosed Under 37 CF-R Sections 1.97-1.99.
The art of vehicular paint applicators includes a variety of vehicular mounted spraying devices directed to applying a paint spray coating to generally flat surfaces or environments. Such vehicular paint applicators have been unsuitable on corrugated steel decking and other corrugated surfaces, which often may be used as a structural basis for flat building roofs. The present invention solves this need.
For Example, corrugated steel decking of flat roof buildings require welds or screwheads to attach the steel decking to structural steel members. Often building codes, architects, contractors, or building owners require the welds and/or screwheads to be painted over to stop or reduce corrosion or for aesthetic reasons. The corrugations of such steel decking used for roofs and floorings vary in the measurement between the high sections of the corrugations (flutes) and the width and spacing of the low section of the corrugations (valleys). When welds and/or screwheads are painted over on these corrugated support structures it was heretofore necessary for a painter to manually walk around the roof or floor with a paint container, and brush or paint sprayer, to manually paint the welds and screwheads as the corrugated nature of the roof or flooring prevented use of traditional vehicular paint applicators.
Welds and screwheads are usually located in the valleys of the corrugation. It is common for the welds and/or screwheads to be intermittently spaced and aligned relative to each other. Since structural corrugated decking can cover massive areas of commercial structures, manual painting of welds and/or screwheads is a tedious and time consuming task. The present invention discloses a light weight intermittent or continuous vehicular paint applicator capable of traversing the flutes and valleys of corrugated surfaces while providing means for easy sensing of aligned welds and/or screwheads for applying a controlled or limited burst of paint spray directly thereon.
Specifically, the present invention includes a wheel roller-skid assembly to avoid a ride across corrugations that is unduly bouncy by minimizing the fall of the vehicle wheels into the valleys of the corrugated surface to no more than 1/4th of an inch (preferably, 1/16th to 1/8th of an inch) by means of a skid guard of polyethylene or thermal plastic material attached to a carriage body. Further, the vehicular paint applicator for corrugated surfaces of the present invention sets the spray of a paint applicator in such spaced relation to the front axle wheels of the vehicle that when an operator senses that the wheels have just fallen into a valley of corrugated surface, the operator is thereby signaled to commence jog control dispersal of a controlled or limited burst of paint spray at a determined point relative to the wheels directly over welds and/or screwheads.
In another embodiment of the invention a wheel tractor continuous belt looped in engagement around each side set of carriage body wheels allows movement across corrugations. In this embodiment a sensing limit switch is provided to sense when a limit switch wheel mounted to the carriage body has encountered a valley of the corrugated surface.
Prior art vehicular mounted spraying devices have been proposed to apply spray paint coatings under a variety of conditions. Such patents include:
______________________________________ U.S. Pat. No. PATENTEE ______________________________________ 4,865,255 Luvisotto 4,599,968 Ryder et al. 3,940,065 Ware et al. 3,373,938 H. C. Sweet 2,351,719 R. Stahl ______________________________________
U.S. Pat. No. 4,865,255 to Luvisotto discloses a sprayer and self container mobile pumping apparatus for spraying liquid herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, fertilizers, and the like. The sprayer includes an adjustable nozzle and is hand held for use in conjunction with a wheeled cart with upper and lower support shelves carrying a removable liquid storage tank on the upper shelve and a rechargeable battery and pump on the lower shelf.
U.S. Pat. 4,599,968 to Ryder et al. discloses a collapsible painting cart apparatus comprising a mobile frame, a receptacle for receiving a container of paint, and an extendible and retractable mounting and guide member for mounting the receptacle and for guiding the direction of the paint released from the container for depositing a strip or selected width of paint.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,940,065 to Ware et al. disclose an apparatus for spraying liquids directly from a paint container mounted on the apparatus wherein an electric drive motor, pump assembly, and paint container shelf are attached to a wheeled frame assembly for portable movement without disconnecting the paint container from the pump assembly.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,373,938 to H. C. Sweet discloses a boom directed marking device wherein a nozzle-supporting boom is mounted on a portable wheeled frame carrying a paint storage tank and a self contained source of pressurized air.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,351,719 to R. Stahl discloses a vehicular line marker apparatus for painting stripes or lines wherein a container for paint and compressed fluid has an engine driven compression unit to deliver the contents of the container tank to a spray gun associated with the machine. The spray gun is supported so as to be adjustable both vertically and traversely relative to the machine body to operate in conjunction with paint shields positioned at the respectively opposite sides of the spray gun such as to serve to define the edges of the paint line produced by the spray gun.
Such prior art patents provide vehicular mounted spraying devices generally unsuitable for traversing the flutes and valleys of corrugated steel decking and other corrugated surfaces. The present invention allows the vehicular paint applicator to traverse corrugated surfaces by minimizing the fall of the vehicular spray dispenser wheels into the valleys of the corrugated surface to no more than 1/4th of an inch by means of a skid guard of a wheel roller-skid assembly or a wheel tractor belt assembly. Moreover, the present invention provides means for setting the spray of a paint applicator in such spaced relation to the front wheels and axle of the vehicular paint applicator such that when an operator senses that the paint applicator front wheels have fallen into a valley, the operator can then make jog control dispersal of a controlled or limited burst of paint spray at a determined point relative to the wheels thereby allowing accurate, efficient and fast painting of aligned welds and/or screwheads by applying a paint spray directly thereon without the operator visually having to locate the welds and/or screwheads or align a paint spray thereon. In the wheel tractor belt assembly embodiment of the present invention a limit switch senses the fall of a limit switch wheel from a flute into a valley of a corrugated surface to allow electric circuit dispersal of the burst of paint. Such operation allows for the vehicular painting of welds and/or screw heads of massive areas of structural corrugated decking in an efficient manner in far less time than manual painting of the welds.